Eater of Knowledge

The creature is a humanoid lump of leathery skin and exposed nerve bundles, with raw brain matter seeping from holes in its swollen skull and a stench of decay hanging about it. It lurches along with heavy, clumsy steps and has no voice beyond the occasional moan or gurgle. That shambling exterior hides a brilliant, merciless intellect.

Its soft-looking body is laced with iron sinew, and it can move with startling speed. Its two heavy fist blows let it trade punches with an armored warrior, and if both hit the same man-sized or smaller foe, the eater grips that victim, holding it motionless (no moving or attacking). The captive may attempt an open doors roll each round to tear loose, gaining +4 if friends help pull.

Next, the eater presses its exposed brain against the victim's flesh, requiring a normal attack roll against AC with no Dexterity bonus. On a hit, fine nerve tendrils burrow inward toward the brain, dealing 1d6+6 damage and permanently draining 1 point each of Intelligence, Wisdom and Dexterity every round unless the victim saves vs. death magic. After 1d4 rounds of burrowing, the tendrils begin tearing out the brain itself: each round every ability score drops by 1d6, with no save, and the victim dies in 1d3 rounds. All damage and drain stop if the victim gets free. The eater lets go only if killed, reduced to 10 hp or fewer (at which point it flees rather than die), or hit by a single attack or spell dealing 20 or more points in one round.

Wrestling is not its preferred approach. It would rather use its mind and the stolen talents of past meals to lure a lone victim away from friends and feed in peace. At will, once per round, it can use domination, hold person, confusion and forget, ESP and detect invisibility, or levitate and shadow walk, and it may also wield special abilities taken from creatures it has consumed. It speaks telepathically, its mental voice a jarring chorus of every thinking creature it has eaten. It is completely immune to mind-affecting magic and mental attacks, including illusions, charms and holds.

Psionics: in psychokinesis it knows the sciences disintegrate, project force and telekinesis and the devotions soften, control winds, animate object, molecular agitation, inertial barrier and control body. In psychoportation it has the science probability travel and the devotions astral projection and dimensional door. In telepathy it commands the sciences domination, mind link and probe, and the devotions invisibility, synaptic static, contact, inflict pain, ESP and invincible foes.

Eaters exist only to serve the great god-brain, a deity of the mind reavers that never leaves the vast cavern realm at the heart of its domain on the neutral planes. The god-brain sends them into places it cannot perceive so that every brain they devour adds new memories to its store. They also serve as cavern guards, messengers carrying its words, hunters of those who have angered it, and occasionally as payment loaned to another power for some favor. Some are dispatched to the Prime Material Plane to deal with the god's mind reaver worshipers, and even mind reavers tread carefully around them.

A faction of despairing nihilists claims the eaters begin as zombies of the god-brain: it scoops out the burned-out brains of chosen husks and replaces them with a morsel of its own gray matter, which makes the body bloat and twist into its new form. Eaters live on brains but truly hunger for the minds inside them, so animal brains hold no interest. They do not reproduce and have no natural lifespan; the god-brain makes new ones as needed and cares nothing whether one lasts a year or a thousand.